Albert Camus

The story is set in an ugly and boring town of Algeria among the French
community. Bernard Rieux is a doctor, whose wife is sick. She is preparing to
move to a sanatorium in the mountains and his mother is arriving to take care
of him. Just then dead rats start appearing everywhere. It is clearly an
epidemics that spreads throughout the town. Only the concierge of Rieux's
building keeps saying that it's a bad joke by silly kids. Then one day the
rats disappear. The concierge falls ill. Rieux is distracted by a call from his
patient Jean Grand to
visit a neighbor, Cottard, who has just tried to hang himself. When he returns
home and visits the concierge, it's too late: the fever has increased
dramatically and the man soon dies. It is only the beginning: people start
dying of the mysterious fever. The newspapers that were clamoring about the
dead rats are now silent: "rats died in the streets; men in their homes".
Rieux is faced with the truth when a senior colleague arrives, Castel: he has
no doubt that they are witnessing a plague, long believed to have disappeared
from the Mediterranean. Jean Grand is a humble employee of the local
administration and notices the alarming statistics of dead people. Cottard,
a traveling salesman, has changed mood and has become his friend, Jean Grand
lives on a meager salary (Rieux doesn't charge him for his visits) and is
at work on a book, whose subject he keeps secret. As the number of deaths
increases, the authorities are forced to declare a state of emergency and
shut down the town. The townfolk is suddenly thrown in a state of isolation
and loneliness. They live like exiles. Many of them are forcefully separated
from their dear ones, like the journalist Raymond Rambert who begs Rieux for
a certificate so that he can return to his wife. Rieux is dragged into a routine
of deaths, and slowly develops a sort of indifference towards life.
The priest tells the townfolk that the plague is sent by God to punish their sins.
Tarrou, a learned tourist stuck in town, keeps a diary of life in the town, observing
how its people went from being religious to being interested only in pleasure.
He feels that he is above all of this: "Death means nothing to men like me.
It's the event that proves them right".
He is puzzled by a patient of Rieux, an old eccentric Spaniard who suffers from
asthma, the only one who was originally delighted by the plague.
Tarrou the observer approaches Rieux with a plan to create a corp of volunteers,
aware that it will be dangerous for him.
Tarrou interrogates Rieux about his motives for being a doctor. Rieux is an
atheist who became a doctor just because he had to take a career. Having seen
many people die, his mission is to fight death. He knows that he can never win,
and that the plague means an endless defeat. Tarrou understands his mission,
and claims that he has understood everything of life.
Tarrou and Rieux fight alongside each other to save the greatest number of lives.
Rambert, instead, just wants to find a way to escape. He gets in touch with
Cottard, for whom the plague has been a blessing: he has become a smuggler and
is making lots of money. Cottard promises to help Rambert be smuggled out of
town, but his connections cannot deliver. Rieux and Tarrou are aware of
Rambert's endeavours and don't blame him. Tarrou, though, is like a missionary:
after enrolling the priest, he tries with Cottard, guessing that Cottard must
have a dirty past. Cottard admits that he could end up in jail for something
he did, and that he tried to commit suicide to avoid jail. He then accepts to
help Tarrou's army of volunteers. Next is Rambert himself. Rambert is sure that
he is not being a coward: he fought in the Spanish civil war. However, he
has had enough of heroes. Heroism without emotion does not strike him as
valuable. He believes in love, and is witnessing a world that is rapidly losing
any interest in love. Rieux replies that what he is doing is not heroism
but simply human decency. Rambert accepts to help them until he finds a way to
escape.
The plague gets worse. Individual destiny has now become collective destiny.
Rieux and the volunteers are getting exhausted.
When he finally found a smuggler ready to take him out of the town, Rambert
surprises everybody by asking to stay. He doesn't feel like a stranger anymore
and wants to keep helping the town. He has become one of them, working for
a futile but collective goal.
Castel works on a vaccine but the vaccine fails when tried on the very son
of the chief magistrate. The priest dies. Meanwhile Rieux receives news that
his wife's conditions have worsened.
The magistrate, devastated by the death of his son, decides to join the volunteers.
Tarrour explains to Reiux his motive. As a child, he had witnessed a trial
in which his father, a public prosecutor, had asked for the death penalty.
Since then he had devoted his life to fighting the death penalty. However,
he had come to realize that everybody, even he himself, is responsible for
the killings.
Grand falls sick and Rieux despairs of saving him. Grand asks Rieux to
destroy his book. Rieuz realizes that the book is simply one sentence
repeated over and over again with small variations. However, Grand
"resurrects" and promises to rewrite the book. Rats reapper in the streets.
The number of deaths decreases dramatically. The only person who doesn't
seem happy is Cottard. Now that the emergency is almost over the police
are after him again.
Tarrou dies just when the plague is fading away. Rieux receives a telegram
that his wife died. The gates open: end of the isolation and the exile.
Cottard is arrested after a shootout. Rieux reveals to the reader that he is
the anonymous chronicler who has been writing the book: he wanted to remain
objective. He comments that the town enjoyed the end of the plague but it
was a precarious joy. They had survived this one, and this way they were
prepared for the next one.

Meursault goes to the funeral of his mother, who died alone in a nursing home; in the pool a relationship
begins with a woman named Maria, the brute Raimondo beats and abuses his lady friend until, one day,
she calls the police; the old Salamono is inconsolable as a result of the death of his dog. Raimondo
invites Meursault and Maria to go visit his friend Masson; two Arabs, relatives of Meursault's ex-lover, follow
him in order to take revenge on him, Raimondo and Masson help Meursault to break free; when Meursault
finds himself on the beach in front of a knife-wielding man, he shoots and kills him. Meursault seems
indifferent to all that happens to him, indolent, apathetic; at the trial he doesn't defend himself, he listen
curiously to the witness's, the lawyers, and the judge, that dig into his private life. Ultimately, he is
sentenced to death-by-guillotin! e, and he now waits for the dawn of his execution, happy to have found
something that finally interests him.